Students Against Surveillance

About

Students Against Surveillance is a project by Tommy Collison and Hannah Weverka in association with the Student Net Alliance aimed at starting a conversation about mass surveillance on university campuses around the world. Students Against Surveillance is not affiliated with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. (But we love their work!)

Why should I care about mass surveillance?

In societies where there is mass surveillance, it’s harder for people to think, learn, and explore. Privacy is important not only for students and academics, but also for journalists, lawyers, activists, doctors, entrepreneurs -- anyone who wants to think and act freely without worrying about who is watching them and why. Additionally, privacy helps ensure that everyone in our society is treated fairly, no matter their religion, sexuality, race, or other traits.

Mass surveillance affects you, and you have a right to stand up for your privacy and the privacy of others.

Universities should be strongholds of open communication, where the free flow of information is encouraged. The ability of students to learn and grow is severely hampered when governments monitor our communications and social media activity. Students Against Surveillance is a new project by the Student Net Alliance encouraging students and faculty to protest mass surveillance.

Raise your voice and tell your government that you won’t stand for this. Sign your name to our global letter protesting mass surveillance. We also have university-specific letters.

Global Letter

We came to university thinking that we could learn with confidence, without fear that what we are studying or investigating could potentially be used against us. Given what we now know from Edward Snowden’s leaks, we no longer have that assurance. In an environment of mass surveillance, speech and academic freedom are chilled. People are afraid to speak freely. This is not a healthy environment for learning.

We, as members of the global academic community, protest. We are taking a stand against mass surveillance on our campus, and we want you to join us.

The fact of the matter is that if you're using the Internet, you can bet the NSA is watching. They keep a record of what you’ve visited and whom you’ve been talking to. The NSA has the ability to build a complete picture of your day-to-day activities.

Why is the NSA doing this? If it’s to prevent terrorism or keep the public safe, it’s not working. On December 12, 2013, the President’s Review Group found that this data collection was “not essential to preventing attacks”. [1]

The NSA’s mass surveillance programs are ineffective and present a huge potential for abuse.

Their grounds for surveillance are loosely based on association: currently, everyone who is “three hops” away from anyone deemed suspicious by the NSA falls victim to government surveillance. [2] That means if you have called a Pizza Hut, and a known drug dealer has called that Pizza Hut, then the NSA is currently keeping records of your actions -- and the actions of everyone you’ve spoken to. But it’s even broader than that: we know from the leaked Verizon order that “...every call in, to, or from the United States“ is collected by the NSA. [3] That’s every call, regardless of due process or whether or not you’re suspected of doing anything wrong.

Anyone researching controversial topics could be monitored, and that data could be used against them.

LGBTQ students and faculty who have not publicized their sexuality can now assume that the government has information that could out them.

Students seeking mental health assistance may stop seeking care for fear of that information becoming public.

International students may find a US education less appealing, as being a non-US citizen is an automatic criterion for being spied on.

You may be less inclined to collaborate on sensitive research with a partner in a different country, because you no longer do so privately.

What’s more, our Muslim and Arab peers are being targeted. In February 2012, the AP reported that the NYPD was monitoring Muslim student organizations at NYU, Columbia, and Yale. [5] We now know that the NSA tracked the pornography viewing habits of Muslim clerics to uncover material it could use to ruin the clerics’ reputations. [6] In a democracy, people should be free to practice whatever religion they choose without fear of being profiled and tracked like criminals.

Mass surveillance has created a panopticon: even if we aren’t all being individually observed, we are compelled to act as if we are. We have a right to free spaces such as universities where we can explore ideas and experiment without fear of retribution. We have a right to live in a society free of the need to self-censor. The First Amendment protects not only the right to speak and associate freely, it provides the right to do so without fear. Sadly, what we know about the NSA shows us that the US government is not valuing its own rule of law and democratic principles. The NSA has set up the infrastructure for a surveillance state. Must we wait until it falls into the hands of the next J. Edgar Hoover or Joseph McCarthy before we feel concerned?

As members of the global academic community, we sign this letter in protest. We protest the U.S. surveillance state and the chilling effects it has on our campus life. We call on the U.S. government to bring the NSA back within the bounds of the constitution.

[6] “Radicalizers appear to be particularly vulnerable in the area of authority when their private and public behaviors are not consistent. Some of the vulnerabilities, if exposed, would likely call into question a radicalizer’s devotion to the jihadist cause, leading to the degradation or loss of his authority. Examples of some of these vulnerabilities include: Viewing sexually explicit material online or using sexually explicit persuasive language when communicating with inexperienced young girls.” https://www.eff.org/files/2013/11/27/20131126-huffpo-radicalizers_pornography.pdf. ↑

Students Against Surveillance is a campaign by Tommy Collison and Hannah Weverka in association with the Student Net Alliance. The text is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. The signatories sign on their own behalf; their views do not necessarily reflect the views of their affiliated institutions. Site design by Tommy Collison.